thoreau

There are three huge new art museum must sees here in the Bay area - check'em out:

Chihuly at the Deyoung
opens this weekend - and thanks to Target, it's free folks! Both Saturday and Sunday. (but the crowds (for me at least) would make it prohibitive.) But it runs through September 28th and is simply NOT to be missed. If you are not familiar with the glass magic of Dale Chihuly - click here and get into it!

Dale Chihuly is most frequently lauded for revolutionizing the Studio Glass movement by expanding its original premise of the solitary artist working in a studio environment to encompass the notion of collaborative teams and a division of labor within the creative process. However, Chihuly's contribution extends well beyond the boundaries both of this movement and even the field of glass: his achievements have influenced contemporary art in general. Chihuly’s practice of using teams has led to the development of complex, multipart sculptures of dramatic beauty that place him in the leadership role of moving blown glass out of the confines of the small, precious object and into the realm of large-scale contemporary sculpture. In fact, Chihuly deserves credit for establishing the blown glass form as an accepted vehicle for installation and environmental art beginning in the late twentieth century and continuing today.

Frida Kahlo at the SFMOMA
opens this weekend as well - and runs until September 28th. Mexican artist Frida Kahlo began painting in 1926, while recovering from a near-fatal bus accident, and soon became captivated by the medium's expressive possibilities. Kahlo's folkloric style, influenced by Mexican popular art, and her fantastical imagery earned her recognition among the Surrealists, but her intriguing persona and unmistakable originality propelled her beyond the confines of a specific movement to become a leading figure in modern art. This exhibition, commemorating the centennial of the artist's birth, brings together paintings that span her career, along with a selection of her own collection of photographs, most of which have never been on public display.

The Contemporary Jewish Museum
opened recently to amazing reviews. Their first exhibition is "Artists Respond to Genesis". The exhibition pairs seven new artist commissions, including works by Matthew Ritchie, Ben Rubin and Shirley Shor, with a range of historically important works by Marc Chagall, Giovanni Battista Tiepolo and others in order to explore our changing understanding of the story of creation as depicted in Genesis Chapter 1.

They also are featuring From The New Yorker to Shrek: The Art of William Steig, John Zorn Presents the Aleph-Bet Sound Project (a cool sounding exhibit of a series of original sound pieces based on a letter of the Hebrew alphabet) and "Being Jewish": A Bay Area Portrait.